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This study aims to investigate the connection between digital literacy and women’s empowerment in the rural Himachal Pradesh. It explores how improved digital skills contribute to increased empowerment among women with a specific focus on the role of education in enhancing digital literacy.

This study included 250 rural participants who completed structured questionnaires. Analytical tools, including independent-sample t-tests and partial least squares structural equation modeling, were applied to the data to gain insights into the relationship between digital literacy and women’s empowerment.

This study revealed a significant positive link between digital literacy and women’s empowerment in the rural Himachal Pradesh context. Education has emerged as a key factor that influences women’s digital skills and empowerment levels.

This research adds novelty by examining the digital literacy–women’s empowerment nexus in rural Himachal Pradesh and emphasizing the impact of education. The combination of statistical methods offers a robust approach to understanding this relationship and underscores the importance of digital inclusion and education for gender equality and women’s progress.

This paper aims to examine how gender diversity and women’s empowerment influence the performance of family entrepreneurships and explores the role of firm characteristics as a moderating factor.

The study used a structured questionnaire as the survey tool to collect data from 91 women managers working in family entrepreneurships, which originated from entrepreneurial initiatives, located in various Lebanese regions. The validity of the construct was assumed using the fitness of extracted index, incremental fit-index, non-normal fit-index, root mean square of residuals and standard root mean square residual. Composite reliability, Cronbach's alpha and value confirmatory factor analysis were used to measure the internal consistency. Data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling method.

This study reveals that gender equality, education level and family support significantly affect women's empowerment while an insignificant association was found between empowerment and earning social status and achieving financial independence. This paper also showed a significant interaction between women’s empowerment and the performance of family entrepreneurships. Additionally, the results showed that women holding managerial positions in family entrepreneurships is positively associated with firm performance. Finally, it was concluded that the location of the family firm moderates the relationship between gender diversity and firm performance.

This research contributes to theory and practice regarding the role of women in family entrepreneurships and sheds light on gender differences influencing family entrepreneurships and women empowerment issues.

The study finds the determinants of women empowerment measured in terms of domestic decision-making in a developing economy perspective by considering rural women in India. Women empowerment simply means giving opportunities to women to enable them to be socially and financially independent. Empowerment of women through investment in their education and health has a positive effect on economic growth. Almost 70% of Indian population lives in rural areas. If women in these areas are educated and empowered, they can contribute to the economic growth either directly or indirectly by improving health and education of the future generations. This study indicates that an employed woman, having her own income source, higher educational level, knowledge of legal rights, higher educational level of the mother of the woman, having property in her own name, more freedom of movement during her school days, having high self-esteem and belonging to a relatively affluent background, increases domestic making power of the women, and thus empowerment. Some possible policies are suggested for developing economies.

Women’s empowerment is a multidimensional concept that encompasses different aspects such as access to education, freedom to make vital decisions, labor market access, wages, and political participation, among others. In this research, the authors construct a multidimensional index of women’s empowerment that takes into account individual resources and achievements and analyze its evolution across countries using data from the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations for 17 gender indicators across 96 countries over the period 1995–2015. By means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the authors identify three dimensions of women’s empowerment: reproductive health, economic participation, and basic education. In addition, the authors use cluster techniques to classify countries into four groups with similar behavior patterns in the different domains of women’s empowerment: a group of countries with high levels in the domains of reproductive health and basic education but with low levels in economic participation; a group of countries with high levels in the domains of reproductive health and economic participation that should pay attention to education; a group of countries with medium levels across the three dimensions of women’s empowerment, especially in reproductive health and economic participation; and a group of countries with low levels in all the dimensions of women’s empowerment, especially in reproductive health and basic education. The comparison of these different patterns serves to highlight the aspects in which improvements have been made or, on the contrary, to highlight the obstacles that are hindering the improvement of gender equality. Finally, the results suggest that advancements in women’s empowerment improve the countries’ level of development.

Women’s empowerment remains a key development challenge in Kenya. The purpose of this study is to attempt to understand the status of women’s empowerment and the key contributors to their disempowerment in Kenya’s aquaculture sector.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 534 male and female fish farmers from 300 households drawn from six counties in Kenya (Kakamega, Kisumu, Kisii, Kiambu, Meru and Nyeri). The Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI) was adapted to Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries and Aquaculture Index (A-WEFI) to suit the aquaculture and fisheries sub-sector. The adapted A-WEFI was then used to estimate and the status of women’s and men’s using five domains of empowerment (5DE) and a gender parity index (GPI). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Cramer’s V and sensitivity analysis as test statistics.

About 86% of the men and 80% of the women were classified as empowered. The mean score of the 5DE was 0.93 and 0.95 for women and men, respectively. In addition, 82% of the households achieved gender parity, suggesting that for such households, empowerment of men was no greater than that of women. Overall, the results suggest no major differences between the empowerment of women and men. Findings suggest areas of improvement in empowerment: when observed separately, women report lack of agency in production, resource, time-use and allocation and leadership.

This paper adapts the A-WEAI to the fisheries and aquaculture context, in bid to bridge the gap in standard women’s empowerment measurement methods in this area. Also, there are limited empirical studies on the multifaceted empowerment of women in aquaculture in Kenya. The findings are meant to serve as a point of reference for policymakers, as they develop gender-responsive intervention programmes, and in implementing gender mainstreaming in Kenya.

Despite some decline, most Sub Saharan African countries still exhibit very high levels of fertility, resulting in the lengthening of the phase of strong population growth. Using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data collected over a pooled sample of more than 430,000 married women living in 33 countries, the author examines the relationship between empowerment and desired fertility. The author constructs six different proxies of empowerment: two “objective” proxies (education and labor force participation), three “subjective” proxies (say in household decisions, non-acceptance of domestic violence, and no son preference), and a “relative” proxy (small spousal age difference). The author first shows that these six dimensions are related with one another and highly variable from one country to another across the region. the author then explores the relationship of these dimensions with desired fertility at the individual level. On the pooled sample, the author find that there is a strong and negative relationship between all six dimensions of empowerment and desired fertility: in other words, women who have a low degree of empowerment tend to want a higher number of children. This result still holds when taking into account country fixed-effects to account for country-level characteristics. However, when examining more closely the relationship at the country level, the author finds that there is some variation on the strength of the relationship and that its sign is reversed for some indicators in some countries. Lastly, the author finds that local context matters which suggests that empowerment policies should address both the individual and collective dimensions of empowerment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of Islamic finance on women empowerment in Africa between the periods of 1975 and 2021.

This paper uses secondary data for 27 African countries obtained from the World Development Indicators, World Population Review and the Varieties of Democracy databases. Four dimensions of women empowerment, namely, economic, social, political and household, are considered while Islamic finance is proxied by a binary variable with 1 and 0 representing the presence and the absence of Islamic finance, respectively. The two-staged least square estimation technique is used to control for the problem of endogeneity.

This study revealed that Islamic finance positively affects women empowerment in Africa. Specifically, Islamic finance has positive and significant effects on women political empowerment, women economic empowerment and women social empowerment in Africa but nonsignificant effect on home empowerment. These effects are more pronounced in middle-income than in low-income countries and in countries with higher penetration rate of Islamic finance.

Policymakers should put in place the necessary mechanisms for the promotion of Islamic finance such as the enacting of laws that ensures the creation of full-fledged Islamic banks, encouraging research in Islamic finance and Islamic economics. These policies should equally be backed by the creation of some accompanying measures such as the abolition of social norms that limit women’s ability to take part in decision-making.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study involving an Africa continent-wide analysis of the effects of Islamic finance on women empowerment.

This review paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on women empowerment in tourism by identifying knowledge gaps that may offer opportunities for further research.

A critical review of the literature on women empowerment in tourism was conducted.

The review reveals four knowledge gaps in relation to methodology, geographical location, study context and theoretical framework adopted. Pertinent research includes mostly qualitative research with a focus on non-Western geographical locations. Studies examined women empowerment in relation to alternative tourism forms with several not adopting a theoretical framework. Based on these gaps, suggestions for further research are made.

Although this paper does not aim at providing an exhaustive review of the gender literature, it highlights the narrow focus placed on women empowerment in tourism and suggests avenues for further research.

Women empowerment has only recently begun to attract attention in tourism. This paper adds to extant knowledge on gender tourism studies by suggesting ways to achieve gender equality for sustainable development.

本综述旨在通过确定可能为进一步研究提供机会的知识差距, 对旅游业中妇女赋能的文献做出贡献。

对关于在旅游业中赋予妇女权利的文献进行了批判性综述。

在研究方法、地理位置、研究情境和所采用的理论框架方面, 本综述揭示了四个知识差距。相关研究主要包括关注非西方地理位置的定性研究。研究检验了与其他旅游形式有关的妇女赋权问题, 其中有几项研究没有采用理论框架。基于这些差距提出进一步研究的建议。

虽然本文的目的不是对性别文献进行详尽的审查, 但它强调了对旅游业中妇女赋能的狭隘关注, 并提出了进一步研究的途径。

妇女赋能最近才开始在旅游业引发关注。本文通过提出实现可持续发展的性别平等的途径, 拓展了性别旅游研究的现有知识。

El objetivo de este trabajo de revisión es contribuir a las crecientes publicaciones sobre el empoderamiento de la mujer en el turismo, identificando la brecha de conocimiento que puede ofrecer oportunidades para futuros estudios.

Se llevó a cabo una revisión crítica de la bibliografía sobre el empoderamiento de la mujer en el turismo.

El análisis revela cuatro brechas de conocimiento con relación a la metodología, situación geográfica, contexto de estudio y el marco teórico adoptado. La presente investigación incluye en su mayoría estudios cualitativos centrado en las localizaciones geográficas no occidentales. Los estudios examinaron el empoderamiento de la mujer con relación a las formas de turismo alternativo, y varios de ellos no adoptaron un marco teórico. A partir de estas lagunas, se hacen sugerencias para futuras investigaciones.

Aunque este artículo no pretende ofrecer una revisión exhaustiva de la literatura sobre género, pone de relieve la escasa atención prestada al empoderamiento de la mujer en el turismo y sugiere vías para futuras investigaciones.

El empoderamiento de la mujer sólo ha empezado a ser objeto de atención en el turismo recientemente. Este artículo se suma a los conocimientos existentes sobre estudios turísticos de género al sugerir vías para lograr la igualdad de género en aras del desarrollo sostenible.

Despite several policies in the Arab Gulf States aimed at promoting women’s empowerment through employment, women’s career progress has not met the expected gains. Workplace empowerment is a critical aspect of women’s economic empowerment. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the factors that contribute to workplace empowerment for women in the Qatari public sector.

This research uses a mixed-methods approach to explore workplace empowerment among female civil servants in the State of Qatar. The study combines surveys (N = 310) and interviews (N = 30) and uses an inductive thematic approach that considers women’s narratives as the primary source of knowledge construction.

The authors’ findings strongly suggest that perception-related factors have a more significant impact on workplace empowerment than structural ones. The results indicate that feelings of disempowerment are influenced by perceptions of gender-based discrimination, poor relationships with supervisors and dissatisfaction with work–life balance. Women feel empowered when they have access to decision-making opportunities and perceive that their workplace supports their professional growth and advancement.

Although this paper focuses solely on women’s perceptions, additional research is necessary to compare the experiences of both men and women regarding workplace empowerment. While individual and organizational factors were examined in this paper, future studies should also consider societal factors. The results highlight the importance of equal and supportive organizational practices and cultures to foster empowerment among women in the workplace, providing valuable insights for policymakers.

This paper addresses a critical research gap on the intersection of gender, work and management in the Middle East. It responds to the need for more diverse contextual research on Arab women’s work experiences and provides methodological diversity by using an exploratory, mixed-methods design with a grounded approach. The study highlights the interaction between structural and psychological factors, emphasizing the gap between policies and resources and women’s lived experiences and perceptions of workplace empowerment.

The purpose of the paper is to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis and systematic review to examine the research landscape of women empowerment through participation in self-help groups (SHGs), identifying the eminent contributors, intellectual communities and future research agenda in the field of SHGs and women empowerment.

The global works of literature related to the theme of SHGs and women empowerment between 1998 and May 6, 2022 were scanned for bibliometric analysis and systematic review. A total of 176 English language documents from the Scopus database were extracted. Bibliometric analysis is conducted using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer software.

This study finds that SHGs are paramount in achieving rural women’s empowerment multidimensionally. Found that India is the most contributing country with 136 documents, and Ranjula Bali Swain and Fan Yang Wallentin are the most cited authors in the research field of SHGs and women empowerment. In addition, the paper proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework to portray rudimentary antecedents of women’s empowerment achieved through participation in SHGs.

This bibliometric analysis, along with a systematic review demonstrating a framework encapsulating the principal dimensions of women empowerment and their indicators, will be helpful to practitioners, government, policymakers and researchers working in the area of SHGs and women empowerment.

This study recognizes numerous significant contributions by eminent scholars and presents a concise review of the literature for novice researchers working in the area of SHGs and women empowerment.